Jitney
ISBN:9781585673704 read summary

"Jitney" (!982, revised up until 2000) was August Wilson's first play; the time period was 1977, and it's part of his Century Cycle of Pittsburgh plays. It takes place in the station of a gypsy cab company where drivers take calls for taxi runs around the neighborhoods. What the reader takes away from the play is Wilson's masterful creation of real people, his Afro-American brothers and sisters, his ear for authentic conversation, and his use of heightened language when his people are commenting on the human condition in an often eloquent and pithy manner. Frequently what they say is a kind of popular wisdom learned through lives of hard knocks. They behave, talk, and move like real people.
The plot seems to be zeroing in on Youngblood, his problems with girlfriend Rena, and threats from an interfering fellow driver Turnbo who has a gun. Then the story takes a turn and focuses on the boss of the jitney car station Becker. The city is about to tear down the station for urban renewal. Becker's son Booster is just released from prison after serving a twenty year sentence for the homicide of his white girlfriend. Becker rejects his son and has no use for him, like Troy, the father in Wilson's "Fences," he lacks any sense of forgiveness.
The play lacks a single-minded arc when it veers off in Becker's direction. It ends up where you don't expect it.
The play mirrors the life of Afro-Americans functioning in a white-dominated world, but I don't think it attempts to make political or polemical statements. It is descriptive, not prescriptive: this is the way the world is.
Choosing a gypsy cab station for the milieu of the play was an inspiration because it allows for the frequent entrance and exit of characters, and gives insights into the larger society as the drivers interact with passengers and Shealy, the numbers taker. It also allows for a great deal of heartfelt humor.
As a playwright you have to be careful you don't pile up too many weights or burdens on your characters, because you may just wear down the audience which may feel enough is enough already. Sometimes you wish that Wilson's characters would just break down, hug each other and show compassion or pity. Becker seems mean-spirited and heartless.
This play has a lot of good, quotable lines, a lot of folk wisdom and folksy lines.
"You look up one day and all you got left is what you ain't spent."
"Everywhere you went people treated you like a big man. You used to take me to the barbershop with you. You'd walk in there and fill up the whole place."
"The only thing left to do is write on his tombstone. `Here lies Bubba Boo. Was caught with Betty Jean instead of Betty Sue.'"

By the time that this review appears I will have already reviewed five of the ten plays in August Wilson's Century cycle. On the first five I believe that I ran out of fulsome praise for his work and particularly for his tightly woven story and dialogue. Rather than keep following that path for the next five plays I would prefer to concentrate on some of the dialogue that makes Brother Wilson's work so compelling. For those who want to peek at my general observations you can look at my review of "Gem Of The Ocean" (the first play chronologically in the cycle).

In all previously reviewed plays I noticed some piece of dialogue that seemed to me to sum up the essence of the play. Sometimes that is done by the lead character as was the case with Troy Maxton in "Fences" when he (correctly) stated that there should been "no too early" in regard to the possibilities of black achievement and prospects in America. Other times it is by a secondary character in the form of some handed down black folk wisdom as means to survive in racially-hardened America. In "Jitney" this task falls to Doub in Act Two when he cuts through all of the rhetoric and accusations a that some blacks were (and still are) making about white abandonment of the struggle for racial equality in America. His retort: ain't no whites give a damn about you, you don't exist for them.

These lines are doubly poignant in play where the central occupation is that of "homegrown" private cab drivers that sprang up in the black ghettoes because the licensed cabbies wouldn't go into black neighborhoods. Powerful stuff. As I have noted previously that says more in a couple of sentences about a central aspect of black experience in America at the end of the 20th century than many manifestos, treatises or sociological/psychological studies. That Wilson can weave that hard understanding into a play of less than one hundred pages and drive the plot line of a story that deals with the contradiction between black aspirations and the reality of the hard fact that many blacks were left behind heading into in the Reaganite 1980's when all the "boats were to be lifted to by the rising tide" is compelling. Given the hard fate for most blacks in housing, education and jobs today Brother Wilson is on to something. As I have also noted previously- that, my friends, is still something to consider in the "post-racial" Obamiad. We shall see.

August Wilson is the greatest American playwright. Not the greatest living American playwright, but the greatest, period. His best plays stand comparison with the best work of Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams. No American playwright has produced such a consistent body of work, and no American playwright has attempted a cycle with the scope and ambition of his series of plays. Wilson's subject is the Great Migration, the story of the African-Americans who emigrated from the southern states to the cities of the industrial North and their slow construction of satisfactory lives in the difficult and changing world of 20th century America. Wilson has written 10 plays on this subject, one for each decade of the 20th century, amounting to a fictional history of African-Americans in the urban North. This is, however, history from below. Wilson's heroes are garbagemen, short-order cooks, day laborers, self-taught musicians, and street vendors. One of his great gifts is his ability to use common speech in a way that is consistently interesting, frequently eloquent, and often powerful. He gives poetic voice to people usually regarded as inarticulate and invests ordinary struggles with real but not exaggerated significance. The African-Americans of Wilson's plays are a doubly uprooted people. Uprooted initially by the grievous trauma of slavery that sundered their connection with their native traditions, the emigrants fleeing the Jim Crow south and its brutal racism are uprooted also from their homes, families, and the traditions developed in the aftermath of slavery.
Wilson's overall story is the reconstruction of African-American identity and family life in the cities of the North over the course of the 20th century. Wilson's plays often feature protagonists whose sense of identity and families have been damaged greatly by the oppressions of racism and the atomizing effects of the industrial economy of the North. Over the course of the cycle, Wilson shows characters re-establishing a sense of connection with their ancestors, even back to Africa, and gradually developing the family ties to sustain them. Wilson repeatedly uses supernatural elements in his work, particularly as a device to advance his theme of the importance of developing a sense of historic connection with ancestors, including those originally abducted from Africa. This could easily be hokey, but his matter of fact use of these elements is very effective. Another recurring theme is the importance of music, particularly the Blues tradition developed by African-American musicians, which he sees as a vital and creative force in African-American life, often carrying truths across generations. Some of the most affecting parts of Wilson's work are his demonstrations of the direct and indirect destructive effects of American racism on family life. Even more powerful are those scenes in which his characters overcome these obstacles to reaffirm family connections.
Not all of Wilson's plays are outstanding, but all are at least very good. Readers will differ on their favorites. In my opinion, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, Fences, and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom are outstanding. The rest vary from excellent (The Piano Lession) to the very good. Cumulatively, they are a really impressive achievement. Mention must be made of the fact that Wilson has been aided by outstanding collaborators. Wilson's plays usually go through a series of versions before the final version emerges. Wilson has had the benefit of working with unusually talented directors, notably the gifted Lloyd Richards, who was responsible in large measure for recognizing Wilson's talent. Wilson has benefited also from the existence of a whole generation of remarkably talented African-American actors. These people made it possible for Wilson to realize his vision. We have all been the beneficiaries of the work of Wilson and his collaborators.

It's clear to say, that one outstanding act in this play may be one of August Wilson's most powerful and emotional. It is a scene where a proud father who refused his son for twenty years now encounters him when he is released from prison for murder.


In the series of plays that chronicle the black experience, Jitney is set in the early 70s and is about jitney (car service) drivers who provide low fares to the black community in Pittsburgh. The setting is in a dilapidated section of town that is experiencing the city boarding up buildings, a practice that characteristically doesn't result in improvements. The building that houses the car service with that of several men's livelihood is considered for boarding up.

The characters are young and old, a busybody, an alcoholic, a young father, a Korean war vets, etc. These characters have minor stories, but nothing as profound as the main character, 60ish Becker, who manages the jitney car service. It is his son Booster who was spared the death penalty and is released from prison.

At that time of the murder, many young blacks did not take well the treatment from whites that their parents were subjected too. These younger blacks grew up with an attitude and were shamed that their parents didn't stand up to white folks. The younger generation resorts to violence. Consequently, Becker's son Booster kills a white girl for lying that she was raped by him.

Becker, a man of honor, is humiliated by the actions of his son. Becker also confirms that Booster's mother died very soon after sentencing. She could not bear to hear from the judge ...."that the life she brought in the world was unfit to live."

This lengthy exchange of dialogue between Beck and his son is profound and with Act 1 Scene 3 and 4 makes up the entire worth of the play.....Rizz

Becker and Booster, estranged father and son have a scene, which shoots out into hearty emotional territory from the get, that is the heart of this play. A destinctly male play, featuring some standard types, the core being: young & ambitious Youngblood, pesky instrusive Turnbo, older drunken Fielding, settled/sedate veteran Doub, father/manager/coach-like Becker, and Booster-who is actually a mix of youthful intentions and elder understanding.
I read this and cared for Becker and Booster. I was hopeful for Youngblood, and was held in suspense about what would happen between Turnbo and Youngblood.
Jitney is a positive play, with a surely hopeful attitude and a redemptive feel. Wilson deals sparingly with outside circumstances: impending eviction/unknown future, alcoholism/senseless violence, black & white relations, lies that can be tolerated and truths that can't, community/family outside of blood, etc.
I did think it ended too easily, but maintained a sense of hopefulness and redemption, that I imagined satisfied the on-going life of the characters.